FSMajor wheel wobble

[LesLock]

I overhauled the front axle and have only recently taken it out on the road. I was very disappointed to find it developed a wheel wobble (both wheels) as I got up to a reasonable speed. As kingpins seem to be in short supply I chose APUKOnline as supplier. Mistake? I struggled to fit them and to maintain the wheels in a parallel fashion. There is a slight toe in with the distance between the back of the tyres compared to the front being 1.5 inches. The only play is in the steering box as I have yet to overhaul it.

I had considered using Sparex to supply kingpins but they are unavailable at present. They say their kingpins are to OEM specification but cannot tell me whether they are manufactured from original drawings. I have moved the front wheels out in line with the rear wheels for more stability.
Presumably the notches in the track rod ends are accurate?

I have read that some people make a new groove in the track rod end in order to bring the front wheels into alignment. However each time the wheels are moved to a different width a new groove will have to be machined. My idea is to perform the adjustment on the ‘tube’ that contains the track rod ends as this will accommodate any width of wheel spacing and I feel it will be an easier operation as I don’t have suitable machinery.
Do you think that setting the front wheels parallel (as I believe they should be) will cure the wheel wobble?

Would appreciate any thoughts/experience on this subject before I am forced to perform a bodge!

[Billy26F5]

I would start by checking your play, make sure the wheel bearings are set up properly and that the spindle arms are at 0.025" from the extension (assuming you have rubber seals in there, felt seals used before the Super Major need 0.002") and are in the correct position. Not all tie rods are accurate, so you need to check this. 1 1/2" is however rather a lot. I'll look at Super Billy tomorrow, as these spindles look pretty similar to the Agriline ones Super Billy has which do line up ok.
Sandy

[LesLock]

I appreciate your reply. I know you told me before about the 0.025” clearance but I am unsure where this measurement is taken and its significance here. The rubber seals are installed at the top of the kingpins. The wheels turn freely with little sideplay. Do you have experience of inaccurate tie rods? I believe the grooves should be spaced at 2” intervals? And there should be zero toe in?
Do you believe that eliminating the toe in will cure the wobbling?

[Billy26F5]

You'll want to use a feeler gauge between the extension and spindle arm. There should be no play in the wheels, so that's what I would check first. The grooves are indeed at 2" in the tie rod ends, but in some cases you have some tolerance to play with in those as well as the tie rod tube, Super Billy was assembled with no proper setting but his tie rod has these slightly larger grooves, enabling a correction when I saw he had slight toe out, but I don't think you'll manage to make up the 1 1/2" you're talking about like that. Toe in should be zero. See if you got the spindle arms on correctly, but I don't think you'd get the bolt through if the position is wrong. I'll check both Billy and Super Billy and see if I can find anything to add. A pic or two might help too.
Sandy

[John b]

Agree with Sandy, 1 1/2” sounds very excessive. As for the play, have you checked the axle pivot and A frame mounts for wear? Last one I did had very worn bolts holding the A frame to the axle and the A frame pivot on the sump had an old bolt through it with bits of copper pipe over it to try and make up the gap. Every small bit of wear will add together and show up at the wheels I have always found the pressed steel wheels will wobble alot worse than the cast ones

[fenhayman]

Jack the front wheels up to check for any play on bearings.

[LesLock]

I should say that wheel wobble wasn’t a problem before I overhauled the front axle and there is no play in the new wheel bearings.
If I could be certain of getting a pair of kingpins that, when installed, would result in the front wheels being parallel then I would gladly throw away the ones that I have installed as I firmly believe that the toeing in of the wheels is the cause of the wheel wobble. I don’t know if anyone agrees with this or if anyone can tell me where to get kingpins that are manufactured like the originals. I don’t really want to bodge the job! I could return the front wheels to their narrowest setting but I assume the toe in would be the same?
I do appreciate your input and would like to find a solution and not a ‘fix’.

[Old Hywel]

A minor adjustment to the toe-in can be made by widening the slot in the track rod with a grinder.
You are then relying on the clamp to hold everything in place, so a short run of weld could be considered. (Guess how I know)
An inch and a half of toe in will strip the tyres in no time.

[Billy26F5]

At minimum track both Billy and Super Billy measure the same (I think 41 1/4" but I looked at that a while ago) between the centres of the tie rod pins (add 2" as required for your wheel track setting). Check both spindle arms are at the same angle from the wheel, and also see that when the LH spindle arm is in line with the axle the wheels (or which wheel) is actually in the straight ahead position. I suspect one of your spindle arms is badly positioned, but can only be sure with pics. What I can say is that Billy and Super Billy mix Ebro and Ford parts with new ones and are exactly the same in measurements for spindles and tie rods. Probably is worth checking the main axle pins too, John's case sounds pretty bad.
Sandy

[LesLock]

Thanks for your replies. Is it likely that the toe in is causing the wheel wobble?
As I noted in another thread on my axle overhaul, I was aware that the spindle arms were not ‘symmetrical’ and with my son’s help we moved one spindle arm by one spline. This required a bit of hammering to get the locking bolt in place! The arms now look symmetrical. There are 24 splines on the kingpin so each change in spline position rotates the spindle arm by 15 degrees and this is noticeable, so I believe I have achieved the optimum setting with the kingpins I have purchased. This is the reason I suspect dodgey kingpins. The only thing that has changed is that I have widened the wheels by 8” in total.
Has anyone established whether any supplier’s kingpins are made to original drawings? I need to be confident before buying more kingpins.
I am thinking how to road test the tractor with the wheels temporarily ‘locked’ in the parallel position to test my theory that this is the problem.
As a last resort I will modify the ‘tube’ which holds the track rods, but I may start a thread to see if anyone can advise me of some ;’genuine’ kingpins.

[Billy26F5]

If you want genuine spindles then ebay and auctions are the only option. No aftermarket spindkle looks right, so there's good reason to believe the measurements are also wrong. Changing the wheel track setting shouldn't be relevant to the toe in. I would quite like to see a pic anyway (that should show how your spindle arm angle compares to others), but some people seem to have solved this by replacing the spindle arms too.
Sandy

[LesLock]

I did purchase new spindle arms from Agriline but discovered the sloppiness was due to a worn kingpin so I sent them back. Wanted to keep things original too. Surely there are some decent kingpins out there. I do rate Sparex, probably due to their price! Any other recommendations please?

I have just done some measurements and don’t believe I can achieve parallel wheels with the kingpins I have got. This is all getting a bit technical isn’t it. Measured at the widest part of the tyres the distance between tyres is 53” at the front and 54.5” at the rear, i.e. toeing in. The distance between tyre and the grease nipple on the left hand spindle arm is 3” and 2.75” on right hand. Distance between grease nipples is 49”.

All I can do to change the geometry is to move a spindle arm by one spline on the kingpin. This rotates the spindle arm by 15 degrees as there are 24 splines. 15 degrees will move the spindle arm approx. 1” which equates to about 2” at the widest part of the tyre. So my measurements of 53” & 54.5” will have one increasing by 2” and one reducing by 2” i.e. 52.5” & 55” which is even worse! So I think I have the optimum setting at present.
Just say if my calculations/theory are incorrect please.

Can you suggest a way of temporarily locking the wheels in a parallel fashion, just to do a road test to see if the wheel wobble is eliminated? I do appreciate your feedback.

[Billy26F5]

Your tie rod length is bang on, I measured it slightly wrong as Billy and Super Billy are 41" at minimum track. I'm begining to wonder what spindle arms you have, as Billy and Super Billy have mixed origins but still match exactly to accurate zero toe in. Some pics would be nice as they should confirm all my current doubts. If you can maybe get the replacement spindle arms just for comparison it might make things clearer too, but I understand that might not be very easy. If you still have your old spindles see if the position of the splines and boit groove match nicely or not and whether they're original or not.
Sandy

[LesLock]

Thanks for staying with this discussion Sandy. I have just looked at the spindle arms and I think they are original EnFo ones. I will try to confirm with part numbers. Bear in mind that before I replaced the kingpins things appeared to be okay, not that I needed to look this closely before. The distance from kingpin centre to steering arm grease nipple is 6.5” for both arms. But do you agree Sandy that if the splines on the kingpins are not positioned as they were on the originals from the factory that this will have the effect of turning the wheels in the direction of the discrepancy and this is the crux of my problem. You would expect the 49” measurement to be correct as this is constrained by the original track rods.

It would be interesting to insert old and new kingpins (I retained the old parts) into the same spindle arm (one would be upside down of course) and see if the axle parts point in the same direction. I am not sure that they should though. But a jig could be made up then insert one kingpin at a time to reveal any difference. I just need to know where to get some kingpins manufactured to original drawings and not to copies of other kingpins. Thanks Sandy.

[Billy26F5]

You could also try repairing your original spindles, some people seem to have managed well (I suggest you see how close they are to the original 1.499" and with a specified limit of 1.493" minimum acceptable). If there's EnFo on all old parts then they should match as the original ones all do for this. It's quite possible the splines are not correctly aligned, as most repro parts are not made to the standards of the Ford parts thereby creating these irritating situations. Brian used to refer to these as parts in the land of nearly right. If you do fix the original spindles keep an even closer eye on the spindle arm clamp bolt as there should be no movement at all there even when exerting a heavy pull on the steering wheel. Neglect of this is the reason so many spindle arms have been welded onto the spindles causing a very likely loss of both parts. The 49" of your tie rod should be maintained as that's the correct setting for your wheel track.
I think we're now a bit closer to fixing this!
Sandy

[LesLock]

Thanks Sandy. Not sure which way to go on this job now. One kingpin needed replacement as the splines are worn and was quite sloppy. The associated steering arm was okay and that’s why I sent it back. I tried pinching up the steering arm but was afraid it might fracture. Any suggestions here please? I put new bushes in and reamed them out to accept new kingpins so I might need to replace them again and they possibly wouldn’t need reaming this time. It would give me the opportunity to get the bushes I always intended to fit i.e. the ones with the grease grooves.
I would much prefer to purchase new kingpins that would just fit! Does anyone in the forum believe that this is possible!
I use the tractor for odd jobs and all this downtime is frustrating.

[Billy26F5]

All new bushes need reaming to 1.5", but if you can get the correct ones in that would be great. You might be lucky if you look for a second hand spindle, if it's only worn (not on the splines) you should be able to rebuild the missing metal with weld as others have done then machine it down to spec. If the splines aren't good then it's much more difficult and not something I've seen attempted. You might even be lucky enough to find an unused Ford spindle which would sort it for real, but it would likely be pricey.
Sandy

[LesLock]

I intend to call one or two tractor repair/refurbishment specialists next week to see what their experience is regarding kingpin replacement and I know someone locally who may have second-hand spindles. I will take my vernier gauge with me.
I have still not decided how to temporarily set the wheels parallel in order to go for a trial run on the road to see if it eliminates the wheel wobble. If this thread goes quiet now I will report back if/when there is progress.

[LesLock]

I spoke to Jim Fletcher of J.E.F. Engineering and he told me that years ago components were made in a particular country (can’t remember where) and the quality was consistent, unlike nowadays where it varies between suppliers and within suppliers. He also told me of a problem which has caused kingpins to snap. It is worth checking that the thrust bearing sits snugly on the kingpin. In some cases the radius at the base of the kingpin will not allow the thrust bearing to sit as it should and when installed in this manner he has known of two kingpins breaking off!

Chatted to Matt at Agriline who has used their kingpins himself successfully and based on that I am taking a gamble and ordered a pair from them. I do hope this works out! As for APUKOnline, where I purchased my existing kingpins, I will be in touch with them if this venture is successful.

[Billy26F5]

Nice to know, I think Super Billy will be ok but not totally sure. If the spindles are different between suppliers then the Agriline ones should fit, although the other ones look the same. Hopefully this will sort it.
Sandy

[LesLock]

I have now got a pair of Agriline kingpins. I installed the right hand one and the toe in was still the same. I then changed it for the original kingpin and toe in was still the same. I then put the APUKOnline kingpin back in and set the wheels to the narrowest setting. Again the toe in is still the same. So I conclude that the kingpins are probably okay but could it be the tie rod that is incorrect?

Sandy, if your Fordson has its wheels in the narrowest setting could you please confirm a couple of measurements please? The distance across the track rod between grease nipple centres and the distance from the fattest part of the tyre to the centre of the steering arm grease nipples.

I am wondering if the toe in has always been present and I am waiting to go for a drive to see if the wheel wobble is still present. I am thinking of getting the tube that holds the tie rods shortened just enough to make the wheels parallel. This will then cater for any position of the axles which is something I want to do. So the Agriline kingpins will be returned.

One other thing you could check for me Sandy is what is stamped on you kingpins, assuming they are not the originals. The Agriline and APUKOnline ones are stamped ‘FNM 977’. Does this suggest the same manufacturer?

I also checked for the thrust washer sitting tight against the base of the kingpin and there’s possibly a small gap. Will check that out with Jim Fletcher who was the chap who informed me.

[Billy26F5]

Will get more details later or tomorrow, but I suggest you repeat what you just did with the RH spindle on the LH side. Your tie rod is perfect, so can't be that. See how that goes, I'll be back with the other things soon, wait for returning the spindles please as the LH ones might show the problem.
Sandy

[LesLock]

I will do that Sandy but I don’t expect the left hand one to be sufficiently different to offset the toe-in. I am beginning to suspect that this discrepancy has always been present. It will be interesting to receive your dimensions for comparison and to see if the wheel wobble is still present.